The eternal nature of stone has held man's fascination from the earliest civilizations. Possibly to balance the transience of human life, rocks, more than any other object in nature, have been endowed with spiritual properties and powers.

   Mountains, the largest of stones, were central to a multitude of belief systems, including Christianity. Noah's Ark came to rest on Mount Ararat, Abraham ascended Mount Moriah to sacrifice his son and Moses went to Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments. He came down from the mountain with the Law engraved in stone. God himself, is often called The Rock and Jesus refers to Peter as the rock on which he'll build his church.

   Before many of those rocks secured their place in world history and legend, one man would turn the experience of a single stone into a phenomenon that would change the world... twice.

***

   Jacob, son of Isaac, son of Abraham, was the second-born twin following his brother, Esau. Jacob tricked his father into granting him Esau's birthright, albeit fairly traded for a meal years before, thus making Jacob the head of the clan. Esau bitterly regretted what he perceived as betrayal and Jacob was forced to flee for his life to the land of Haran. On his journey, a half day's walk north of Jerusalem, he stopped for the night in the village of Luz. Finding meager lodging, he was directed to sleep on a straw-covered floor with nothing but a worn black stone to rest his head on. When his head touched the rock in that traveler's hostel, Jacob experienced visions of the one true God, the path to Heaven and the continuation of the clan of Abraham as the foundation of a lasting society dedicated to the worship of God. Jacob knew that he was in a holy place and that the stone was his connection to the almighty. He declared that the stone would be the pillar of a new nation of God, Israel, and renamed the town Bethel, God's House. The year was 1,900 BC.

   The stone accompanied Jacob's family, the House of Israel, as they traveled the countryside. Jacob fathered twelve sons, each of which, in turn, founded the twelve tribes of Israel. Jacob’s youngest son Benjamin’s people were called the Benjamites and were the final stewards of the Stone of Destiny as it had come to be known. The stone found its way to Jerusalem and by its reputation and power, had overseen the crowning of the Kings of Israel for over 1,000 years.

   In the year 625 BC, the prophet Jeremiah, a direct descendant of Benjamin, prophesied that Jerusalem and all of Israel would be laid waste as the people had strayed too far from God's message. He was imprisoned for these words, but as the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II was on the verge of overwhelming Jerusalem's defenses in 589 BC, Jeremiah was released and given Jacob's stone to spirit westward, far from the destruction that would surely overtake Israel.

   Jeremiah fled to the seashore with his scribe and friend, Baruch. Accompanying them was Tephi, a princess of Israel, the daughter of King Zedekiah. They boarded a nondescript merchant ship, one of three that would escort the stone. Jeremiah followed the Mediterranean Sea routes of the tin trade, having seen in a vision a place so remote that the Stone of Destiny would never fall into the hands of Babylonians. As he understood the prophecy, from this far away land, the stone might someday serve to bring new Israelites into the family of God. Jeremiah stopped in Egypt and Spain to collect supplies before rounding Iberia and setting course for the northern islands.

   In the sixth century BC, the Cornubia area of Britain (now Cornwall) was well known across the civilized world, including the Mediterranean, for its tin mining. From the tin ports of Cornwall, the stone could be moved safely north and hidden in the upper reaches of the known world. That it arrived in Britain around 586 BC is accepted by scholars of the stone to be true. After this, the story of the stone becomes murkier.

   Exhausted from months on the sea, Jeremiah, Baruch, and the princess Tephi stared with wonder at the strange men waiting port side as their lead vessel drifted slowly to the stone jetty. The gray skies and endless mist sent chilled shivers to their core. While Jeremiah felt no fear because he was traveling with the guidance and protection of the God of Israel, his fellow passengers felt anxious upon seeing the motionless figures looking out from the shore. These men were covered in filthy skins hiding all semblance of human form. Their eyes glowed from the darkness of their hoods, more yellow than white. As the small and square striped sail was furled, oars, eight per side, were lowered into the water to gently guide the ship to debarkation. Securing the vessel to a rough-hewn stone bulwark, Jeremiah stepped forward to be met by an emissary of the locals, although he bore no sign or mark of leadership. Finally settling on Greek as the most common language, the two ambassadors, one from the cradle of civilization and the other representing a far more primitive culture, appeared to reach an understanding. Jeremiah walked back to his ship.

   "The stone's fate is no longer in our hands," Jeremiah told his shocked contingent. They had battled both man and sea to bring the stone to this port, a mere stopping point on their journey north where the stone would wait until the tribes of Israel could retrieve it or start anew in a free land, absent of threat. Jeremiah ordered the Stone of Destiny to be brought ashore and loaded onto a battered cart. Pulled by bony oxen, it bounced and rocked, seemingly on the verge of constant collapse, past circular mud and thatch huts until it was out of sight. The traveling companions' shock only grew when three more carts were pulled alongside the pier, each containing stones of assorted sizes, colors and shapes. Jeremiah directed the cart bearing a massive roughly cut, gray stone to the ship. It overhung the cart, front and rear, by the length physically supported and so broad, a man couldn't wrap his arms fully around it. He called Tephi to his side. "The Lord's plan for you, dear daughter, is to accompany this stone to the land of the Irish three days north. You will present it as the Stone of Destiny to their leaders and, for this, you will be welcomed as a queen and live your life in comfort as the mother of a growing nation of great culture." Princess Tephi simply nodded and turned back to the ship. This stone would be the Lia Fail and oversee the coronation of kings in Ireland for a millennium from its resting place on the Hill of Tara.

   A second ship of the fleet was called to the pier. Jeremiah directed a black stone, of lesser shine and color than the Stone of Destiny, to this vessel and bade the captain to return it to Iberia. The Spanish learned of the fleet's mission while resupplying there, and Jeremiah learned that the import of their cargo and a description of the stone had leaked out. His caravan fled before they could be overwhelmed by thieves. Jeremiah sought to placate further pursuit attempts by sending a decoy back. That vessel shipwrecked off the coast of Cadiz losing the stone to the sea. Survivors made it to shore though to propagate the story and quench rising passions to capture the Stone of Destiny for Iberia.

   One of Jeremiah's accolades was tasked with accompanying the final stone. This coarse reddish block, roughly the size of the Stone of Destiny, was sent north by land. That stone went to Scotland where it lay in hiding for a future deception foreseen by the wizards and priests of this growing Celtic culture who had begun preparing for this moment more than 2,000 years prior.

 ***

   In the dark, pre-historic time we now call the Neolithic Age, man was coming to terms with his surroundings and the understanding that great powers were shaping the world. Men needed to co-exist with these powers, serve them if need be, if there was hope to gain an advantage by their favor. Certain men and women were found to be sensitive to the desires of the great powers, the gods. These early priests saw that the gods needed sacrifice in both life and deeds; blood and stone. In the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age, across modern Europe, stone circles were erected to honor the gods and provide a suitable place for blood sacrifice. The sacrificial altar was always at the center of these circles, where the gods' attention and energy were focused. In south-central Britain, a place we now call Salisbury, an unprecedentedly massive stone ring was constructed to reign over all others. Each stone was precisely placed after decades of computations to align with important positions of the sun and stars. The learned holy men, the Druids, were preparing for an important event.

   Construction of this unparalleled testament to the power of the gods was completed in 1900 BC, precisely the year that Jacob rested his head on a smooth black stone over 3,000 miles to the east. After this, the druids waited.

   1,300 years hence, in 586 BC, their wait was over. A fleet of three ships arrived in the ports of Cornwall bearing the talisman that was to finally complete the promise of the stone henge. The druids, who had reached an unheralded level of sophistication in astrology, medicine, mathematics, and obfuscation, met the ships when they docked. They prophesied a complicated misdirection plan, long in preparation and immediately put into action. The druids transported Jacob's stone inland to their temple at Stonehenge, nearly two-hundred miles from the seaport at Newquay. It was a treacherous and slow journey since it would be another five hundred years before the Romans established a network of paved roads.

   All preparations for the Samhain ritual were complete by the time the stone arrived. Ardgal, still an initiate, having only completed fourteen years of his twenty-year training program, was part of a team responsible for removing all common folk from the valley. Ardgal assured them that failure to comply would result in a painful death. Sacrifices would be called on that night and interlopers would be the first to bleed for the entertainment of the gods. Ardgal's sector was on the western portion of the ceremonial grounds, so he was the first to see the procession of men, carts, and beasts followed by scavenger fowl scrounging the offal of the caravan. He knew that the final piece of the temple was arriving from the west but wasn't senior enough to be told more. All orders, plans, and rituals were passed on verbally as the druidic order had strict rules about capturing their secrets in writing. Punishment for violation of this rule was death. Therefore, only those that needed to know what was happening that night knew. The rest simply did what they were told.

   While still shrouded in mystery to Ardgal and most of the one hundred druids in attendance that chilled autumn afternoon, the Stone of Destiny was placed at the center of the henge. As Ardgal and his fellow priests fasted for ten days, slaves, beasts, and virgins were sacrificed on the smooth, black stone such that the red speckles inherent in its surface were indistinguishable from the spattered blood. All manner of depravity was called upon to ensure they had the full attention of the gods, as gods were easily distracted and particularly difficult to gather for a single holy event. Ardgal and his companions were further tasked with keeping the multitude of torches and fires crackling and snapping despite the wind whipping across the fields and through the stones. There was a forest of torches burning such that it appeared the entire valley was bathed in sunlight. In those gray nether moments of the tenth day, when it wasn't yet morning but certainly was no longer night, Ardgal felt a palpable change in the energy around the temple. The wind had stopped, and the remaining beasts began to howl and wail. All light outside the circle extinguished without intervention and the reflections off the sarsens, the towering vertical stones, concentrated on the black stone resting on the central altar. Ardgal watched motionless as an unnatural wind began to circle inside the henge, reaching such a ferocity that all remaining fire was put out. Numerous torches were blown to the ground. Then, all was still.

   The druids hesitated in awe and confusion. Ardgal didn't know what the night would bring. He didn't think even the high druids knew what to expect, when and if anything happened. But he did have his orders so within minutes, the crack of flint on stone was heard. Ardgal and his companions, responsible for the fires, began re-igniting the torches left standing. As the altar was illuminated by the renewed fire, Ardgal could make out a change inside the stones. Slowly, the form of a man became visible. He was lying with his head resting on the same stone that inspired Jacob to embrace the God of the Israelites.

   Myrddin Emrys had come to Britain.